Once again, science is showing us what the likes of Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman and nature lovers round the world know to be true. Immersing oneself in a natural environment benefits the mind.

Studies are finding statistically significant improvements in memory and attention when interacting with nature.

University of Michigan researchers reportin the journal Psychology Science:

“U-M psychology researchers Marc Berman, John Jonides and Stephen Kaplan found memory performance and attention spans improved by 20 percent after people spent an hour interacting with nature.

Researchers believe the findings could have broader impact on helping people who may be suffering from mental fatigue.

“Interacting with nature can have similar effects as meditating,” Berman said. “People don’t have to enjoy the walk to get the benefits. We found the same benefits when it was 80 degrees and sunny over the summer as when the temperatures dropped to 25 degrees in January. The only difference was that participants enjoyed the walks more in the spring and summer than in the dead of winter.””

Walking in nature is filled with inherently interesting stimuli but in a way that is modest and not overpowering. In contrast, walking in a city forces one to remain vigilant and ignore irrelevant stimuli. A walk in the woods is like a vacation for the brain.

A study published in PLoS One found that “four days of immersion in nature, and the corresponding disconnection from multi-media and technology, increases performance on a creativity, problem-solving task by a full 50% in a group of naive hikers.”

“There are cognitive and affective benefits of interacting with nature to individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) and therefore, interacting with nature may be useful clinically as a supplement to existing treatments for MDD.”

Here is a natural, no-cost way to help in the clinical treatment of major depression. It is not a wild leap to assume that regular walks in the woods or strolls along a lakeshore or sitting on a beach can help people avoid the blues.

In this day and age when people are spending more and more time affixed to their media devices, we need to come back to reality and visit with nature every now and then. So take a break from the cacophony or modern life, take in some stimuli the way Thoreau did, and boost your brain’s cognitive ability.